nesariafandomcom-20200213-history
Discrimination in the Nesarian Empire
A description of how various races, ethnicities and religions were/are treated by the Nesarian Empire. Species-Based Discrimination For over two thousand years, Orcs were generally seen as lesser people by Humans and Elfkin. They were perceived as innately uncivilised and, especially to the Elves, somewhat grotesque. This mindset began to break down with the Mortian Renaissance of the late 19th century, but species-based discrimination was not criminalised until the reign of Emperor Adrion I, a notable supporter of Orcish rights. Discrimination against Orcs still exists to a limited extent in the modern day but is largely gone. Elves historically saw themselves as the superior race, mainly due to their unique ability to use magic, with the Nesarians being the only non-Elves they saw as being even close to equals. Once they lost magic in the 11th century, they grew more accepting of foreign species, and in modern times Elvish supremacism is almost absent, and only exists in an ironic form (e.g. many High Elves will joke about Avamorians being "mutts" but not in a serious manner). Christians Christians were almost invariably treated well by the Nesarian Empire, as Christian morality is similar to Elvetan morality. Christianity was allowed to prosper within the Nesarian Empire and few attempts were made to block Christian missionaries coming into the Empire, however for a few decades the construction of new churches was restricted as the government feared that Christianity was spreading too rapidly and would overtake the native religions. Historians often describe the Emperors as enjoying the "aesthetic" of Christianity, and this is reflected in the spread of Gothic architecture throughout the Empire, and the modelling of Elvetan temples off Christian churches and cathedrals. The Emperors also went to great lengths to restore the territory of Greece, which, although motivated by a desire to destroy the Ottoman Empire rather than by religion, did have the side-effect of Christians recovering what they perceived as holy land (Constantinople) and hugely improved relations between the two religions. Jews The Nesarian Empire is often accused of being anti-semitic, and while it is true that most of the people of the Empire generally dislike Jews and many Emperors or government ministers have spoken out against Jews, Jews have never been oppressed in the Nesarian Empire and have always had the same legal status as any other man. The belief that there is some kind of grand zionist conspiracy run by the Jews and their allies (particularly the Americans) in order to expand the power of Israel at the expense of everyone else is widely held in the Empire, with surveys showing 60-70% of the population believes this. 45% believe that there is a much wider conspiracy to have the Jewish race dominate the world. These opinions are espoused by many members of the Imperial Family. The Nesarian Empire has never recognised the Holocaust. The official standpoint of the Nesarian Empire is that the Jewish death toll at the hands of the Nazis was at most one million, and there were no extermination camps, and the aim of the Nazis was to expel rather than exterminate the Jewish population. It claims the death toll was exaggerated in an attempt to justify the existence of Israel (a country that the Empire has never recognised as legitimate). Of course, this stance is fiercely denounced by Israel, the Jewish community and by most western countries. On the flipside of the coin, this has earned the Empire the respect of many Muslim countries.